


St Ninian's Island

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boats and Ships, M/M, Minor Character Death, Romance, Scotland, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:46:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5247116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The coastal North can be harsh in winter, unfriendly. Obtaining passage to a remote island can prove quite challenging, the more so if you're a Southener eschewing traditional means of transport. That's what Arthur Pendragon learns when he asks boat captain Merlin Emrys to take him to St Ninian's. That's how it starts; one man with his secrets, another with only a berth in Lochranza to his name. That's not how it ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	St Ninian's Island

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the absolutely lovely and kind Crideon, who made this ship shape and ready to set sail! Thank you ever so much for seeing to this when I asked out of the blue!

It's not the season for it, not with the threads of frost lacing air and the threat of a storm hanging in the low grey clouds that sit upon the sea. But he begins all the same. He has to, postponing would be like confirming all the naysayers in their views, like admitting he's not cut out for this job as they say. To them he's just a small town boy with ambitions to turn captain and no weathered sea dog, like the ones who huddle around the tables of the Rising Sun. No true mettle in him.

There is no one but him on board and the deck itself is bare, stripped. It makes for a lonely sight but one that offers promise too. He can picture the Aithusa looking all smart and trim once he's given her a bit of a makeover. She'll sit proudly at anchor just like she once did, not changed in character – he would never do away with her too narrow manholes, modest overhand or her slab-sidedness – but finer than before.

With his task in mind, he has unstepped the mast and folded all the rigging away. It now lies in a dock shed under a thick veil of tarpaulin kept in place by heavy rivets. It's not as if he needs ropes and sails to manoeuvre, but they're part and parcel of the Aithusa and Merlin already misses them. There's an eerie quality to a boat with no rigging. It's like a skeleton, without flesh or features. He has also removed the stanchions and guard rails. These Merlin has no special attachment to. They're so many pieces of metal and fibre glass, modern, and a bit characterless, clearly chosen because of their purpose, serviceability, rather than personality, more so than the old rumbling engine he swiftly got used to. He fancies it has a voice of its own, like that of an old lady, a bit temperamental but prone to feats of great garbling.

He shakes his head at his own fancifulness and turns his eyes to the array of objects he's lined up for the job.

He has pitch cooling in a pot. It's dark and sticky and smells good, like the scents Merlin remembers from childhood, from rare parental visits come winter time, when the weather was too bad to make of navigation an easy job. It sits next to lengths of oakum he's thinned into wafers just like the old sailors get them to look. For the job, they use heavy, rusty mallets that have been passed on from generation to generation. Merlin doesn't have one of those but his modern hammer did perfectly okay. The result is just the same and the oakum strips will caulk over the wider gaps between hull boards just fine. Pails of paint range across the length of the deck. They'll carpet it rainbow when the time for it has come.

He sets out to work. He's dry docked the boat, placed her on a tall, firm ramp that's bottomless at the centre, so he can work on her underbelly. You can repair a ship at sea too. Carpenters do it all the time. But the activity requires skilled hands, and to get those you need quite a lot of money. The kind of amount Merlin would rather save in case of a bad season, when tourist flocks are rare and employment prospects thin.

Around the dock station is the yard, a remote corner of the pier. Once it was bristling with ships in various stages of construction, all manners of them, cargo and pleasure vessels both. Nowadays it's more of a maintenance dock, crowded by old tankers and barges. Some are up on their stilts, their bottoms, grommets and brass fixtures caked with rust. Others lie cabled to their pontoons. Workers, single owners like Merlin, or teams of employees, work at them with their power tools. Saws screech and hammers blow and ping.

In the cold the tar lumps quickly. It's not good – it makes it nearly unusable – and he'll have to melt it again, but not just yet. He wants to finish lining up all his tools and materials first. He rolls his sleeves up and rubs his hands together. The knuckles are red. Merlin's not sure whether that's because of the pungent air or because of the chemicals he's handled.

He lines up two buckets, one small and one big, on the deck table, pours turpentine into the lead paint container and then adds both thinner and a squirt of white paste from the tube. He stirs the solution with a wooden stick that's splintering in places, until the paint looks thin enough and just the right shade of blue. When the paint's ready, the colour he wants it to be, he picks up one end of the pump, and turns the tap.

He's started jet-spraying the deck and gunwale when someone hollers at him from the quay. “Hey, you up there. Hello.”

Merlin shuts the pump down and drops it so the coils lie at his at his feet. He leans over the parapet and shouts, “Hi.”

The man is dressed in a grey woollen coat that ends at his calves and looks in its softness like it's worth thousands. He wears a scarf coiled around his neck. It's a deep, rich red, of a kind Merlin has rarely seen in textiles, fleecy, and cut in ample swathes. His shiny leather shoes skim the space between puddles. “I heard at the pub over there--” His thumb points in the direction of the Crown and Anchor's swinging sign. It's wooden and comes in the form of the proverbial anchor. “They say you take people around on your boat. I was wondering whether I could hire you.”

“Where do you mean to go?” Merlin asks, putting his body at an angle so he can peer out to sea.

“St Ninian's Island,” the man on the quay answers. “It's to the south west of Mainland Shetland.”

“I know where it is.” Merlin knows the North Sea like the back of his hands. He's learnt the geography of it by heart, so much so that the shallows and sounds, the bays and the deeps are as much part of his body as his body is of the earth's. “But I'm not taking you. Not today.” He scans the horizon. “Not this week.”

“I'll give you double what you'd normally take.” The man shifts and plunges his hands in his pockets. “Do we have a deal?”

“That's how you people reason, isn't it?”

The man takes a few steps towards the boat. “What?”

Merlin shakes his head. “I can't take you.”

“I thought that's what you did,” the man says, a frown sculpting itself on his brow. It paints lines and wrinkles that sit ill on his face. It's too youthful for creases yet, too polished in the way of city slickers. “Ferry people across.”

“Not in this weather, no.” Merlin's seen the charts, listened to the weather reports. He's not putting out. “Besides, I'm redoing the ship. Come around at the beginning of next month and then we can talk.”

The man's jaw sets. “I'll give you triple the amount.”

Merlin feels thorns bristle the inside of him. His hands fist around the gunwale rail. “Extra money won't buy you services I can't offer at the moment.”

“As far as I know money goes a long way.”

“I'm not for sale. Not like that.” Merlin turns around. “I advise you not to try today, but if you're hell bent on drowning, you may hire a boat and pilot it yourself. Have a good day.”

“Oh come on,” the man's voice follows Merlin as he enters the cockpit. “Everybody has their price.”

Merlin sits on the stool behind the wheel and puts headphones on. They're big and a bit frayed on the inside but they do the trick. They cover the shouts from the man on the quay fairly well. When enough time has passed, Merlin assumes the bloke has hared away, and takes them off. Waves lap at the hull and the radio buzzes on from the headphones. It's the echoes of a country song featuring a strong violin that Merlin's never heard before. All else is silence.

 

*****

 

The Crown and Anchor is dark inside. Aged bare boards line the floor and the bar. The walls are dark wainscot against which varnished wooden benches and booths are propped. They're ringed with the remnants of the drinks ordered the night before, imprints of pint glasses and tankards that intersect one with the other. It's a place full of nooks and crannies, dusty corners and forgotten alcoves. With its glazed windows blocking the view and general mustiness, it's not a tourist spot.

Merlin stirs his spoon in his soup. It's garlic, its taste pungent. Scatterings of spring onion and bread crumbs dot the surface. He moves them around in a swirl, drowning the herbs and sinking the bread. He doesn't eat but watches the screen of the television behind the bar. The mass of a portly pundit partly obscures it, but Merlin doesn't mind. He doesn't really have any stake in the match and is only listening to the running commentary for company.

The man from yesterday plunks down on the chair across from him. He has the same coat on, but a different scarf adorns his neck. This one is black, a mound of wool that glistens with rain drops. “They say you're the best navigator in town,” the man says, moving the salt and pepper shakers from one spot to the other.

Spoon to his mouth, Merlin looks up. “I see they've succeeded in teaching you manners brilliantly.”

“You aren't being very nice either.”

Merlin raises his eyebrows.

“Okay, all right.” The man lifts his shoulders. “I could have shown more tact. I shouldn't have assumed money was your motivator.” The man looks away and there's a tilt to his lips that Merlin daren't call a smile but is an approximation of one. “But you must admit it does spur a lot of people to action.”

Merlin puts his spoon down. “You've a rather grim view of humanity.”

The man lowers his eyelids. They come up quick enough but there's something in his gaze that's faraway and rather forlorn. “That's neither here nor there. I was quick to make a judgement call. I was wrong.”

“You saw my ship,” Merlin says, experiencing some of the bitterness he felt when he first realised what the man was offering. It had come together with the notion that Merlin's failings showed, that he wore them on his sleeve and that there was no way they wouldn't brand him. “You thought I was down and out on my luck and made your offer.”

“I really need to get to St Ninian's,” the man says, searching for Merlin's eyes. Both his gaze and the cast of his face are penitent. “It's very important to me. I'd do anything, anything, to get there.”

As he looks up from his plate, Merlin's mouth twitches at the corners. “You can try and convince me all you want, but it's actually Mother Nature you ought to persuade.”

“I thought that in this day and age the weather didn't matter anymore.”

“That's not really true.” Merlin's always thought of nature as a beautiful but fearsome entity. He's always felt it ought to be respected. “There are still limits. Boundaries that you shouldn't cross.”

“But ferries do make similar crossings every day.” The man swipes his palm along the grain of the table top. “Not on this specific route but I thought it was much the same.”

“Ferries are bigger and have much more tonnage,” Merlin says, “besides if the sea's too rough they won't put out of port.”

The man looks down, lips pushed together. “I see.”

“Look.” Merlin puts his hands down flat on the table, then rakes one across his hair. “I'll take you all right. Just not today or tomorrow. Turn up the day after that and if the weather's not like this--” Rain pitters outside, loud against the pub's windows. “--I'll take you.”

The man sticks is hand out. “Arthur Pendragon.”

 

**** 

The boat has a brand new coat of paint, the smell of which still hangs in the air, and though small, she looks pristinely clean. Rust hangs on some chains and cables but otherwise the vessel is as ship shape as it can be. The cabin has simple but neat and sturdy furniture. The table and chairs in particular are solid wood items. The cockpit boasts equipment shiny enough to be deemed new. And the galley is well stocked with food of all types. Cheese and apples are in the fridge. Scones sit on the worktop, wrapped in cellophane and squared up in rows. The cupboards conceal boxes of cereals and protein bars.

The Captain, Merlin Emrys, is not quite so put together as his vessel. His jumpers are over-large and worn at the cuffs, which he probes with his thumbs from time to time. His woollen hat, a heavy cable knit, presses low on his forehead and at the back of his head, where is hair curls vigorously but with little rhyme or reason. His wellies are shapeless and smudged with dirt around the soles.

Once Arthur would have minded, would have pointed out his unhappiness with the way Merlin presented himself to the world. These days he registers his simplicity and finds it agreeable, quieting in a way.

“We'll be there come morning,” Merlin says, sidling from side to side, hands up in the air as he illustrates the route they're going to take. “The weather has settled but I'd still like to avoid the Gulf of Corryvreckan. It's too dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Arthur sits himself on the bench.

“Tidal race that creates whirlpools and standing waves.” Merlin's face crumples. “Believe me, however much in a hurry you are, you don't want to find yourself in there.”

“No, no, I get it.” Arthur puts his hands up. “I'll be patient.”

Merlin snorts, his mouth twisted into a smile. “Patient? You? All of a sudden?”

Arthur looks through the porthole. He sees a strip of the quay. In the harbour ships lie at anchor. Some are newly painted, with seamlessly waterproofed metal hulls, huge commercial vessels that seem too big for the port they've put to. Others, much smaller ones with old style masts and rigging, dot the pier and the bay. Thick ropes tie them to bollards; so many hemp strings shaking in the winds. “I'm patient enough.”

“You're such a turncoat,” Merlin says, with dimpling of his cheeks. “You wanted us to sail right into a storm.”

“Hardly.” Arthur sets his lips together. They're so dry he can feel them get stick together in places. “But I do want to get there. I...” Arthur sweeps his gaze around the cabin and bites at the swell of flesh between his nail and his thumb. “I need to get there.”

Merlin places his hands at his hips, shifting in place. His head dips. “I'll get you there.” Merlin searches for Arthur's gaze from under the weight of his lashes. “The long way round, but I'll get you there.”

 

**** 

 

Arthur tosses and turns in his berth. The sea is choppy and the wind whistles in the porthole's chinks. But it's not that that makes his night restless. It's his thoughts that do. They make his head heavy and put pressure on his heart. He tries to blank his mind and suit his body's rhythms to those of the heaving blackness. But letting go of his apprehensions is an uphill battle. He sits up but doesn't turn the light on. He doesn't need to. Enough moonlight streams in from the portholes and a glow spreads out from the cockpit. Arthur can't see inside it, but he can tell Merlin's awake. The radio chirps low in the background and the furniture groans as Merlin moves about.

He pictures him leaning over the console radar. It blinks and pings. He fancies Merlin's bending over a chart, tracing its lines with fingers splayed outwards, squinting as he reads the numbering on it. He can visualise him as he perches on his stool behind the wheel, looking out to sea.

Arthur falls asleep as he tries to fathom what lies beyond the crests of the closest waves, past the velvet reach of their depths.

The sun is up midway across a milky sky when they lay anchor. Merlin rows him towards the shore himself. The dinghy is small and feels more cramped because of the litter in it. Blankets and a first aid kit sit side by side stern thwart. Even so, the rowing boat fends the water fast, topping white mounds of foam and choppy sheets of deep blue.

Shoes tied together by the laces and slung over his shoulders, Arthur hits sand. When he turns around, Merlin grabs hold of the oars again. “I'll be here again by nightfall. In case you're not there I'll hit the beach again tomorrow, okay?”

Arthur gropes into his pocket for his mobile. He takes it out and spares the screen a glance. The battery bar is nearly full. “I can still ring you.”

“Signal is pretty shitty around here,” Merlin says, looking back over his shoulders as he starts rowing. “I'll be there at the appointed times.”

Arthur puts his shoes back on, laces them tight, and starts on the road. He hasn't got a map, but he knows the island is small. Finding his destination can't be too hard. He starts off the beach's slope and hits a track that is half gravel, half grass. He follows it eastwards past salt marshes swamped in muddy water and across moss-carpeted knolls.

The house sits close to the sea. Some of its windows look over a stretch of it. At the back a private jetty pokes out towards the ocean. A row boat bobs in the surf; a thick blackened rope ties it to a rusty cleat.

Arthur fishes for the envelope in his pocket, lifts the flap and extracts the Yale key. It's short and stubby and stained with green copper. It still fits into the lock just fine.

The house is larger than Arthur thought it would be and not at all empty or dusty. The walls are cream, the furniture light coloured wood. A white frame window fronts the kitchen. Another one opens on one side of the neighbouring den. It affords a view of the sea and none of the land. A table spreads along the length of the wall. Plants hang from rafters in leafy tangles.

Arthur takes off his jacket and sits at the desk. He folds his hands on the worktop and stares out the window. He can't see Merlin's boat. He can't even see any strip of land, just the compact mass of blue that is the sea, and the wide expanse of the sky. As he lets the view steep into him, he stops thinking, registering things. He sinks into a lull that has him relax. The peace only lasts awhile.

He takes another tour of the house, goes to the attic and treks down into the cellar. The attic is full of old broken furniture. A crib missing some of its rails stands upside down under the window; boxes marked books sit one on top of the other in the corners.

The cellar is much the same. Crates full of wine crowd the floor. Round flat barrels throng the back.

He takes a bottle from one of the open crates. Cobwebs garland the neck but Arthur hopes the wine inside hasn't gone sour. He liberates an apple from his pocket, uncorks the wine with his teeth, and goes sit in the study with the folders he found in the desk. He opens them in his lap.

They're full of photos. Birds streak across the sky. Bees and other insects hover over flowers. Children pile in doorways looking at people that are out of shot. And then there are other pictures. His father peeks out of most of them. His face is smooth, wrinkle free. His mouth relaxes around a smile. His eyes spark. This is not the father Arthur knew. There's something different about him, a kernel of contrasting vibes Arthur can sense but not define. The divergence doesn't rest in the smile, though Arthur saw precious few play on his father's features, but rather in his father's whole attitude. It comes off the print in waves. It pours off his features, exudes from the play of light in the picture.

Arthur slips it under the others and comes upon a frame of his mother. It's a close up, black and white. Her eyes shine big in it. Her profile is linear, clean, stark. Her smile slants sideways.

Arthur thumbs the picture. There are others, at least twenty of them, but he lingers on this one. It unknots something around his heart and lightens his chest of a weight he has been carrying long enough. Instead of filing the photo back into the folder, he pockets it.

Light seeps off each room in turn until it is a pale shadow curling in the corners. He's stayed in the house longer than he meant to. He leaves.

The rowboat nears the beach in somersaults. The waves roll it to and fro in zig zag patterns. As the currents rock the craft, the prow bobs up and down and side to side. Merlin fastens the dinghy to a weathered floating dock, tightening a thick rope around the topmost loophole. “I thought you wouldn't come.”

“No.” Arthur spares a glance for the heart of the island, but it's only a brief one. “I didn't feel like spending the night.”

“So you want me to sail you back to Lochranza?”

“Yes,” Arthur says. “Yes.”

The following morning they put to port in Lochranza quite early. The sun has just started to paint the top of buildings pale. On the gangway Arthur pays Merlin for his services. He has no luggage so he hits the quay empty-handed.

He's just walked past the Crown and Anchor, when he finds the money in his pocket. It's a thick wad wrapped in stringy blue ribbon. It's the exact amount of cash he gave Merlin. For a moment he stares at it, unable to form a proper reaction. In the end his mouth stretches into a smile.

 

**** 

 

Merlin lathers the bread slice with mayonnaise, cleans the knife's blade on a napkin, and slices the tomato in four. He's considering halving each section in turn, when he hears the voice.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Arthur says, his soles screeching against the flooring. “I tried calling out from the quay but you didn't hear.”

Merlin turns round. “Those bulkheads are thicker than they seem.”

“Yes, evidently.” Arthur's mouth curls upwards. “Look, there's a reason I've come here.”

“You want to give me my money back because you think I need it.” Merlin rubs at his forehead with the heel of his hand. When he notices he's still wielding the kitchen knife he puts it back. “Well, I don't.”

“Actually, I got that message the first time,” Arthur says and this time he's smiling, his head held back. “So I'll keep the cash, thanks.”

“So what--”

“I want you to take me to St Ninian's again.”

Merlin opens his mouth, then closes it. He shifts in place then leans against the counter. “I don't know what's so interesting about St Ninian this time of year to make you want to go twice in a month, but I'll take you again.”

“Depending on the weather.”

Air rushes through Merlin's nose and he almost huffs a laugh. “I see you're learning.”

 

**** 

 

Arthur's been gone an hour when Merlin starts doing the cleaning. He picks a mop and goes on his knees, swabbing the deck, rinsing the rag into a series of tall pails he's got arrayed sternlength. He swipes the cabins till all the dust sticks to his rags rather than the furniture. He cleans all brass fixtures till they shine and he gives the galley a thorough clean up. He's elbows deep in the fridge, when Arthur comes back.

“I'm done for today,” Arthur says, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and lifting his shoulders.

“Uh.” Merlin looks out the porthole. The sky has turned purple with steely swathes of grey at the edges. “Time does fly. I was--”

“Being domestic?” Arthur's mouth curls up at the corners.

“Cleaning up.” Merlin bins two old onions that are mouldy at their core. He takes off his rubber gloves. “I thought I'd do a bit of maintenance. This boat is my job.”

“You mean to make more profit out of it?” Arthur asks.

Merlin closes the fridge door. “Yes, yes, I really mean to make myself a millionaire. You don't know how highly rated my swabbing skills are.”

“I'm sure.” Arthur looks down, sniffing through his nostrils. “And practice makes perfect.”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Merlin wags his head. “That and I wanted to challenge the record currently held by Bluebeard's crew.”

“Of course.” Arthur hums. “And will this spell of busyness involve cooking?”

“Only if the passengers help.”

They cook together. Merlin takes out his set of knives and bowls. Some of the bowls are chipped around the rim and mismatched to boot. One is blue and the other unvarnished terracotta. The knives are sharp though, the blade keen. With them they slice the bread and the tomatoes for the soup. They put onions in the blender and bring the broth to a boil till the galley fills with steam and Arthur coughs and says, “I shouldn't have trusted you with this!” He waves a hand in front of his nose. “We can't even open a window in here.”

“No,” Merlin says, lowering the gas flame and leaning over to lift the storm cover from off the porthole. It allows him to open it a quarter through. “But you can do this.”

They spread blankets on the floor in the main cabin. Merlin lets Arthur have the cushy red one. They sit cross legged in front of each other and eat off the plates they place on the floor. They can't turn on the TV because there's no signal on St Ninian's; besides the radio's in the cockpit and only transmits marine weather updates. They have to rely on their wits to make the conversation flow.

“So,” Merlin says, dunking a piece of bread in the steaming tomato soup. “You clearly know what I am, but I don't know what you do.”

“I- um-” Arthur breaks a cracker in half and then in quarters. “I'm a financial analyst at for The Economist.”

Merlin whistles. “High flying career.”

“Not really,” Arthur says, putting half the cracker in his mouth. He only speaks after he's swallowed his morsel and dabbed at his lips with the corner of a paper napkin. “Mine is a middling income job. Not that I lack for anything but I'm hardly what you'd call affluent. ”

Merlin thinks of jobs such as Arthur's as yuppie ones, but keeps that to himself. “And what brings a financial analyst from...”

“London.” Arthur spoons some of the soup into his mouth. “Well, chiefly at least.”

“From London here...”

“A fair amount of things.”

Merlin senses resistance there, so he goes for another tack. “And do you like London?” Merlin's never set foot in it. The seas around his home village he knows well. But he hasn't gone south often and the big city has never been a lure to him. He supposes that Arthur, however, may enjoy it. “I mean you look like you would.”

Arthur scoffs. “I look like I would?”

“You know--” Merlin gesticulates. “A little posh.”

“Ah.” Arthur puts down his piece of bread and dips his gaze to it though Merlin's fairly sure he's not really studying it. He doesn't bring it to his mouth however. “Well, as a matter of fact, I don't love it. I'm appreciative of all that it has to offer but sometimes I do feel like...”

Merlin picks up on Arthur's hesitation and feels bold enough to ask. “…like?”

“Like I'm just one in a sea of uncaring people” Arthur says, lifting his shoulder. “Which I suppose I am. But it's become a little discomfiting lately.”

“So that's what's brought to the rugged Shetlands?” Merlin's known the type before. People who need to touch base with nature and reconnect. 

“No, not wholly.” Arthur brushes crumbs off his blanket. “I wouldn't say so. Mine isn't a romantic kind of flight, seeking seclusion somewhere wild.”

“I see.” Merlin's not really sure he follows, but he doesn't want to press. He's done enough questioning and he has no wish to make Arthur feel ill at ease. “Mmm.”

Arthur rubs at his knee and looks into the distance. He picks up the thread of the conversation himself. He does it so hurriedly, his words bumping into each other. “It was curiosity mostly.”

“Curiosity mostly.” Merlin humphs. “Yeah, I buy that.”

“And what is a twenty something doing playing ship captain?” Arthur's eyes sparkle with a twinkle when he asks that question.

Merlin lets his spine straighten. “Hey, what's my age got to do with anything?”

“Nothing.” Arthur arches an eyebrow. “But the ship's old, you can't be making a lot of money out of it and I did think it --”

“You'd be surprised how many people want to tour the islands in the summer.” While that is true, Merlin doesn't want to dwell on his concerns for the winter or the qualms he had when he started on his chosen career path, the ones that still nag at him in the voice of all the naysayers. “I've a mind for business.”

“I don't doubt it,” Arthur says and his eyes take on a shine as he does. “It's still unusual though. With job seekers moving to big towns, you decide to stay in your small one, and start a business that...”

“That?”

“That doesn't exactly scream modern times to me.”

Merlin lets out a little snort that makes his nostrils flare. “What's not modern about taking boats out?”

“I don't know,” Arthur says, waving his glass about. He drinks from it but doesn't put it down. He tips it Merlin's way instead. “You playing captain without a crew, single handedly taking people places.”

“A crew would put me in debt.” Hired hands cost a lot. Where does Arthur think Merlin would be able to find the money? “And I'm hardly doing it single-handedly. I mean I may be alone at the helm, but I have sonar and radar and I keep in touch with the coast guard.”

Arthur reaches over to take a chip from the bowl. “Ah, you've shattered my romantic fantasy.”

Merlin's throat works. “Well, you were the one who entertained it.”

Arthur holds his hands up. “Touché.”

The conversation rarefies. Sporadic bursts of commentary replace question and answer patterns. They discuss sailing routes and scenic spots, Merlin's experience of them. They talk about the weather and sailor types. Merlin swears there's no such thing as an archetypal sailor while Arthur says there must be a common drive that pushes people to try and explore the sea. They don't come to any conclusion and fall into silence. Arthur leans his head against the sofa and before long he's out like a light. Merlin gathers up the plates and glasses and carries them into the galley. He gives them a thorough rinse under the tap but leaves them in the sink.

When he makes it back to the main cabin, Arthur startles awake. His lids are puffy and his eyes bloodshot. They range across the space before him. “I meant to help you clean up.”

“Do you do that often?” Merlin knows what the answer will be so it's not that he's after but rather Arthur's reaction. “At home, I mean.”

Arthur squirms, pushes his lips together, and reddens. “I'm afraid not. But I would have tried.”

Merlin smiles. He wants his expression to come out as teasing but he doesn't think he succeeds. He feels like his muscles are playing into the wrong angles of his features, making them softer. “I'm sure.” He drops his hips and lowers his head, sidling from side to side. “Look, would you mind if we didn't sail back right now? I've had a few glasses.” Merlin can feel the warmth of the wine in his belly. It makes his limbs heavy and his head light. His heart's going rather fast too. “And I'd rather not go behind the helm.”

“That's fine.” Arthur picks himself up. “Really, I can sleep on my berth.”

“I know you're not used to sleeping in one and you probably don't like it, but it would be more prudent if--” Merlin tilts his head. “Wait, you're serious.”

“Yes,” Arthur says, shrugging his shoulders. “Turns out I like this sailor life thing.”

Merlin grins and says, “I'll do up your berth.”

“I'll do it myself.” Arthur puffs his chest out. “I can fluff pillows, you know.”

“I'm sure.”

They make the bed together, fitting the bottom sheets around the thin mattress, and stuffing the duvet in its cover. When they're done, Merlin wishes Arthur a good night. He lingers a second in the doorway and sees Arthur sitting sideways on the bed, feet on the floor. He's bathed in moonlight and he shines, the contours of him highlighted, his profile sharp and a little crooked, stately. He looks more like an apparition than a real man.

Merlin shakes himself and marches off to his bunk.

 

***** 

 

Arthur minimises the window, lowers the lid of his laptop, stretches and then lets his shoulders sink back down. He's been working since seven and has got a cramp in his back and neck to prove it. A glance at the clock tells him it's eleven. He hops off the stool and walks into the kitchen.

He opens the fridge, piles kiwis and bananas in his arms, dumps them on his worktop, slices them and pours them into the blender. He's about to put the lid back on, when his mobile sounds. Once he's accepted the call, he clamps it between his ear and shoulder, then tries to screw the blender shut.

“Arthur, it's Gwen,” Gwen says, her tone soothing and gentle as always. “I'm calling to ask whether you've made up your mind.”

Arthur angles the lid and probes about until he hears it lock into place. “Actually, well, not really.”

“But you've read my suggestions?”

“Yes.” Arthur made a point of going over them at least thrice. Then he shut the folder in the drawer and tried to forget about it. “They make sense, Gwen.”

“Good,” Gwen says. “So you're selling.”

Arthur flicks the button and the blender starts working, the contents surging and melting into a pulpy mass. “Morgana said I should too.”

“She's right.”

“She says I should put it all behind.” What she actually said was that Arthur brooded too much as it was and that owning the house would only cause him more pain. “She says it won't help me.”

“I agree with her.” Gwen's voice sounds distant for a few moments but then it rings clear to Arthur's ear again. “I know it hasn't been easy, Arthur, and I understand where you're coming from. Yet keeping such a reminder--” Gwen humphs. “--I don't think it's advisable.”

Arthur stabs at the blender's power button with his finger. It stops whirring. “It's my mother's house, Gwen.”

“Yes,” Gwen says, understanding seeping into her tone. “Yes, I realise.”

Arthur pours the contents into a glass, stirs, plunks a straw in, and takes a sip. He looks out the window and at his back garden. It needs a trim. It's overgrown with weeds and the bricks that circumscribe the flower beds have crumpled in the past few days' storms. But he can't summon the will to do anything about it. He could gather some of the seeds, bring them to Scotland with him, and see if they take. “There's something that pulls me there.”

“Arthur, that's in your head.” Background noises float to the forefront of the conversation but then quieten again when Gwen reminds whoever's there that she's on the phone. “As your financial adviser, I must say it. If the National Trust for Scotland renew their offer, you ought to take it. It's a lot of money.”

“I'm well off enough, Gwen.”

Gwen chuckles. “Is there's such a thing? Most of my clients certainly don't think so.” She sobers. “Anyway think about it.”

“I want to go to St Ninian's again.” Arthur looks out the window again and instead of the view he's used to he sees stretches of cobalt sea framed by a white sashed window fogged up with brine. “I need to go.”

 

**** 

 

With a wiggle of the rod and a quick strip of the line, Merlin pulls the fly free of the water, adjusts it, swings his rod and recasts it. The line coils off the spool with almost no resistance and skitters once more across the surface. The tip sinks below the placid dark waters.

The smell of seaweed, whose branches tangle around the legs of the wooden pier, is heavy here. A soupy green line of it goes from the slipway down to the beach that extends west of the port.

Merlin settles in for the wait, his shoulders going down, his lips puckering to allow him to whistle. The tune is one he remembers well. He's about to tackle the chorus, when the promenade creaks.

Merlin looks up.

Arthur tugs at the crease of his trousers and sits down next to him, legs dangling above the water. “Hey.”

“Hey,” says Merlin, holding onto his rod. The line feeds up through the guide and twists back at the tip to hook into the small metal loop close to the cork handle of the rod. “I thought you were done with Scotland.”

Arthur holds his gaze. He lifts his knee up and places the flat of his hand on top of it. He doesn't say anything for the longest time until at last he starts talking again. “I thought so too.” His gaze drifts into the distance. “I thought I would come and make sense of it all. That once would be enough. But to be honest it isn't and I haven't.”

“You're making no sense.” Merlin ought to have his eyes on the line but he can't quite keep them there. He watches Arthur instead. In this light, a softer one that smudges his features, he looks different. The sun's golden gleam smooths his features into a burnished mask. “But I'll take you.”

 

***** 

 

Arthur wanders around the house. He goes from room to room and reacquaints himself with each of them in turn. He haunts the den and the study. Though it's mostly spotless, he cleans the kitchen. He waters the plants and does a spot of DIY with the toolbox he finds in the shed. He oils the sashes and insulates the panes with silicone paste.

Although it's cold and a layer of frost sticks to the soil in clumps, he goes into the back garden. It needs work, he thinks, but provided it gets it, the place could be bursting with flowers come summer. It would look even more beautiful than his London garden.

The sky is purple when Arthur makes it back to the ship. Merlin is huddled in the cockpit, a book in his hand. Its cover is faded and curls at the edges. The design on it is highly stylised, full of glossy colour and geometric shapes. It looks like something out of the fifties though the paperback itself is probably only as old as the seventies.

When Merlin sees him, he drops the book.

“I really hope you're not as clumsy when it comes to putting into port.”

“You startled me,” Merlin says, picking the tome back up. “That's all.”

Arthur leans against the controls and folds his arms. “Yeah, tell yourself that.”

“Have we sunk yet?”

Arthur must admit that they haven't. “But thrice is not a pattern.”

Merlin shoos him off the console. “Off. Or I won't be able to get you back to terra firma.”

“Actually.” Arthur dips his head against his chest. “I don't want to get back to Lochranza.”

“What did you mean to do then?” Merlin says, sinking back onto his stool.

“I was thinking...” Arthur doesn't know how to put it in words so he comes to the closest approximation of his thoughts. “We could eat on the beach and take a walk around the island.”

“In the dark?” Merlin's eyebrows scrunch upwards. “In this cold?”

“Forget about it.”

“No. No. No.” Merlin shows him his palms. “That's not what I meant. We can, er, go.”

 

**** 

 

They spread blankets out on the section of strand that faces the boat head on. They pin them down with pails and paint tins. The basket at the centre anchors the mound down at the middle. The wind licks at the edges of it and nearly sends the quilts flying, weights and all, but they manage to get to their meal. It's a simple one of hot sausages, bread and wine.

They have a bonfire going. The flames light up the beach and strain upwards, crackling and leaping from log to log.

Merlin's scarf flaps in the wind. The air is cold, with the tang of the sea borne on it. It kisses his skin with its frost. It bites at his knuckles and saws at his cheeks. Even so, he fills his lungs with it until he's a bit high. He tips his head back and watches the stars twinkle in thick clusters.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Arthur says.

“What?” Merlin startles but soon relaxes back into a sprawl, his hands behind his back, splayed wide on the coarse fabric of the blanket, his legs straight in front of him. “Oh, the island. The area is very scenic.”

“Yes,” Arthur says, crossing his legs so one rests upon the other. “But that's not exactly what I meant.”

“Mmm.” Merlin closes his eyes. Even through his lids he can make out the brilliance of the night sky. “Then what did you mean?”

“There aren't many places quite as solitary and untouched as this one,” Arthur says. “It allows you to find peace.”

“Isn't it rather lonely?” Merlin blinks his eyes open.

Arthur hints at a laugh. It's buried deep in his throat and hushed in a huff. “Yes, perhaps. I've long dreamt of cutting ties and finding a simpler place to live, one better tied to the land.” He gathers a fistful of compact sand in his hand. It smears his fingers brown. “But perhaps I'm too used to the big city now and unfit for anywhere else. Perhaps that's all that this is, dreams.”

“I don't know,” Merlin says, searching with his toe for the sand hollows. “It isn't that uncommon to want something like that. My dad used to believe he wanted that too.”

“Has he changed his mind?” Arthur asks with a frown sculpted between his eyebrows.

“Not in so far as I can tell,” Merlin says, releasing a breath. “He left when I was a child. To explore. He came back from time to time, don't get me wrong, but he had the wandering bug, so he went off again.”

“What happened to him?”

“The last time he came round--” Merlin licks his lips. They've gone dry, as dry as his heart does every time he thinks about his father's last return trip. He remembers it in snatches, the growth of his beard, the sound of his voice, the hitch in it when he shared his news. “He wasn't well. He told me all about it. He told me about his will. He'd had one made. The boat – it was all he had, that and a few savings – it was going to be mine. He died a few weeks later.”

“I'm sorry, Merlin,” Arthur says, the weight of his hand landing on Merlin's shoulder.

“Me too.” Somehow he feels no bitterness cloying his tongue though. Instead something much sweeter unspools through his veins. “But we carry on, don't we? We build on.”

Arthur sinks back into place. “I suppose that's true.” His gaze unfocuses. “My father died quite recently.”

Merlin fumbles with his hand, grabs Arthur's arm and holds on. “Oh my God, I'm sorry. I, I didn't know. I wouldn't have brought it up if--”

“You weren't to know.” Arthur dips his head, eyes on the point of contact between them. Just as Merlin's about to retract his hand, Arthur clamps his over it. “But thank you. Your words mean a lot.”

Merlin doesn't think they can. But there's something in Arthur, out there in the depth of his eyes, that makes Merlin credit him, that makes him believe he's truly, somehow, made a difference.

 

**** 

 

Arthur can't sleep. The bunk bed is narrow but comfortable enough. It cradles his frame so that he doesn't have to ball up. It's cold in the cabin, but he has blankets and he can burrow under the coarse grain of them if he wants. His breath mists up. He makes a point of guessing the shapes in the clouds of vapour he exhales. Before long the game gets on his nerves so he makes a point of closing his eyes and voiding his thoughts. He stirs again soon after, fitting his limbs around the pillow, pulling up the blankets till his feet poke out. He turns on his side, a knee digging onto the wooden rim of the bed. He straightens his legs and slips his hand under his head. This won't do either.

He kicks off the blankets and walks into Merlin's room. “Are you awake?

Merlin sits up. The sound of his breath fills the cabin. “Yeah,” he says, knuckling his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You were sleeping.”

“No,” Merlin says, leaning forward, an elbow on his knee, the heel of his hand pressed against his forehead, fingers in his hair. “I was maybe drifting off. But I wasn't asleep.”

Arthur hesitates, taking a step back and one forwards. “Mind if I stay?”

The silence crackles. It's as deep as the night.

“Stay,” Merlin says.

Arthur sits on Merlin's bed.

“You can stretch out,” Merlin says.

Arthur turns his body around and lies down, his back to the bulwark.

Merlin puts a hand on his stomach and says, “You can make yourself comfortable.”

“How?” Arthur angles his head to the side.

“Just--” Merlin tugs him down by the arm. “Don't sit up.”

“It's your bed.”

“I'm happy to share.”

“Are you?”

In the near absence of light that night on the sea brings about, Merlin's face looks diaphanous, a collection of sharp angles that smudge one into the other. Some grey light seeps in from the porthole and lights up his eyes and his eyes alone. They shine bright, blue like the heavy waters that lap at the boat. Arthur feels his thoughts thin, his heart contract, a wave of emotion bearing him on. It burrows deep inside him and makes him feel extraordinarily alive. He could fight it but he doesn't want to. 

He leans closer to Merlin until he can sense his cautious exhale. It ripples against Arthur's mouth, somewhat sweet, somewhat zesty. His eyes drop to the source, to Merlin's mouth. Merlin's palm chases upwards, goes from his waist up to his neck, which he palms, the broad of his hand warming Arthur's skin, his thumb ghosting at the hollow of his throat, pressing into it just the lightest bit, as if it's sucking in the imprint.

Merlin shifts so that their heads are level and pulls Arthur into a kiss. It's slow and explorative but there's nothing shy about it. There can't be, because Merlin's tongue is deep in Arthur's mouth and Arthur feels no compunction in touching it with his or sucking on it. Merlin cradles Arthur's face in his palms with a gentleness that might break him, traces his fingers on his cheeks in short arcs that follow the ridges of Arthur's bone structure. He kisses him with intent, in licks and nips and rubbing motions. He sets Arthur's senses spinning, unlocks something inside him that winds up the mechanism of his body. It awakens him to a fire that burns low in his belly, to a quickening of his breath and a sharpening of his senses. It's good, something to get lost in, and Arthur goes wild on the kisses, rains thousands on them on Merlin's mouth, deep and shallow both.

Merlin douses every sound Arthur makes with his mouth, soothes the burn with a collision of lips. Though his touch is ever shifting, it's also a constant.

In a drag of lips and teeth, Arthur puts his mouth to Merlin's neck. Merlin sighs, pushes against him, pulls him to him. He claws at the back of Arthur's shirt, stretching it upwards. Arthur goes with the motion, getting closer to Merlin, sucking bruises into his skin, flattening his tongue on the patches of it he's distressed into redness.

Merlin tugs at his shirt till the fabric goes taut. It's an old shirt, one Arthur sleeps in because it's frayed into smoothness, suiting the shape of him, but Arthur still says, "Wait, wait."

He grabs the hem of it and lifts it over his head. Merlin yanks at Arthur's bottoms, sliding them down his legs in an uneven pattern of descent. As Arthur reaches for the waistband of Merlin's pyjamas, their arms cross. Arthur draws the fabric down in fistfuls, in pulls, but it doesn't slide down with any ease. Their bodies are too knotted together for them to undress with any grace.

They fumble and try to untangle. They sink into a kiss at the same time too, and it complicates matters, because by then they're a snarl of lips and breaths and limbs.

When his cock slides free of the fabric, Merlin hisses. Arthur pauses in his striving, matches gazes with Merlin, and puts his hand around it. Merlin gulps back a choked sound. Arthur's palm glances off Merlin's cock. It's nothing more than a transitory touch, a sliding of his fingers down the underside of it, but Merlin trembles at it.

Feeling his way around on the basis of Merlin's responses, Arthur swipes his palms down Merlin's prick, kneads at his hips, rubs his fingers along the softer skin of his flanks. There's muscle there. Merlin's not cut, but he's wiry and toned. Under that Arthur can feel the leanness of bone, of a frame meant to be spare. There's a uniqueness to it Arthur wants to map with his hands and with his mouth and with his gaze. But he can't quite, or not as meticulously as he wants to, because he's lost and adrift and fired by Merlin's reactions, his keen tremors, his filthy kisses, the pulling of his muscles when he goes taut at something Arthur's done. He can't take it all in and he can't process it. He can only feel it.

Arthur slides down Merlin's body, touching his open lips to his pectorals, his ribs, his belly, and the tip of his cock. It's leaking, fluid gathering bead by bead around the slit. Arthur fists the base and Merlin groans low in his throat, another bitten off sound.

With a jerky motion, Merlin kicks off his bottoms the rest of the way and spreads his knees. Arthur burrows between them and sucks him off slowly, making it as wet as he can, bobbing his head and dragging his lips down the folds of skin, following the path the vein takes, until the head of Merlin's cock lodges in the back of his throat. He holds it there for a few seconds then hollows his cheeks and swallows. When tears prick his eyes, he draws back a few notches, curls his tongue around Merlin and licks and sucks till Merlin thrashes his head and moves his hips in broken motions.

With the scent of Merlin deep in his nostrils, Arthur gets light-headed. He loses his bearings and gets lost in a tangle of his own senses. But he can't stop. There's an urgency at the core of him that beats in the same rhythm of his heart. He needs to finish this.

Merlin rolls his hips, arches them off the bed in a sharp arc that makes the jut of his bones stand out. Arthur pins him to the thin mattress, searches Merlin's slit with his tongue, laves it clean. He suckles on the head and Merlin comes, flooding Arthur's mouth.

With a heaving flex of muscles, a sudden burst of it, Arthur climbs up the mattress and kisses Merlin, matching their mouths together, scraping his teeth along the cusp of Merlin's chin, rubbing his lips along the length of his jaw, then fitting their lips again until his are sore and tingling.

In return Merlin strokes his side, says, "Let me."

They need no words. Though their instincts seem to be fine-tuned, they communicate in some other way.

Arthur vaults off him and Merlin turns around so he's lying flat on in belly. Arthur tops him, roving kisses on Merlin's nape, on the back of his shoulders. He locks hands with Merlin and Merlin gives him a squeeze, a tight grip of bony fingers whose every knuckle Arthur can feel.

"Spread," Arthur says though the words burn in his throat. He's never been so vocal in bed and requests of this kind seem more intimate than even the closeness required by sex. But he gets over it because he can't not say it, not now, when all the things he wants are coming to the fore and are being made possible. If he'll just take them, if he'll just speak out.

Merlin moves his legs apart. Arthur nudges his cock between Merlin's thighs. In the position they're in it fits snugly. Arthur breathes out, sucks in air, and closes his eyes till he sees pinpricks. He's been hard awhile. Considering what he's been at -- touching Merlin, learning the shape of him with his body, – he couldn't not. But it's heightened now. It's as if something inside him wants to lash free. His skin pricks with goose bumps; his heart bumps against his ribcage.

He starts pulling in and out, his moves punctuated by the hitching in his breathing. It becomes rougher, faster, with a croaky breathy quality to it. He braces himself on his arms and rubs himself between Merlin's legs. When he gets closer, he grabs at Merlin's hip, fitting his palm around a fistful of bone. It's keenly edged, grounding. He thrusts his hips out. His pulse rockets. He lowers himself, gives the top notch of Merlin's spine a brush of his lips, and comes, mouth slackening with it.

They sort each other out on the narrow bunk as best they can. Merlin flips onto his side and Arthur slips a leg between Merlin's. As their breathing calms, they look each other's eyes, but they don't speak.

As his heart rate decreases and the warmth of Merlin seeps into his bones, Arthur's vision blurs, giving way to snatches of dream images. Before long, he's asleep.

 

****

When Merlin wakes, the light that filters in through the porthole is still pale, the colour of jasper. Merlin passes a hand before his face, blinks at the ceiling, turns around and sees Arthur. He remembers the night then. It came as a surprise, completely unplanned, but it's put a crack in his heart all the same and now it's bleeding freely. It's not unpleasant, the heaviness in his chest, the warmth in it, and Merlin smiles.

Arthur moves. He's still asleep, face smooth and without a wrinkle, his mouth parted. His breathing is a little heavy-going, not quite snoring, and Merlin smiles at it. There's no reason to. He's sure he rumbles in the same breathy way as Arthur does when he dozes. But his lips stretch all the same.

Trying not wake Arthur, he slips down the length of the bunk, and in a rustle of sheets, hops off at the foot. Once he's clear of it, he turns around to check he hasn't disturbed Arthur.

Arthur frowns but he's still deep in his slumber.

A grin folding his mouth at the corners, Merlin nods to himself and pads into the galley on the hunt for breakfast.

 

**** 

 

The deck is covered in frost when Arthur gets there. The sky is clear but grey and he imagines that were they somewhere higher instead of at sea, it would be snowing. As it is, the air whips his knuckles and lashes his face, and he has to push his hands deep into the pockets of his puffy jacket so as to work some manner of warmth back into them. He wishes he had accepted the blanket Merlin had offered him when he'd said he wanted to go above deck. He'd said no; he'd wanted to experience the morning for what it was. Well, he's sticking to his guns for now.

He walks to the rail, leans on it, blows on his hands and sees St Ninian's coastline recede. It's nothing more than a strip of brown flowing into the cobalt depths of the sea. Its reliefs have disappeared into mist; its shoals faded into distance. Arthur can't see the house or its surroundings anymore. He can't even make out the bay it's built around.

With a sigh, he fishes his mobile out of his pocket. The signal is low but it's enough to make a phone call. When Gwen answers, Arthur says, “I'm not selling.”

“Are you sure?” Gwen sounds sleepy, the edge of a yawn chased away from around her words. Her tone though soon morphs into one of vigilance. “Arthur, you have time to think this through. You haven't even received a copy of the last offer.”

“I'm positive,” Arthur says, looking to the horizon, to the island dwindling from sight. “I don't need time to mull this over. I already have the answer and it's not going to change.”

“Arthur--” Gwen starts.

“Really, Gwen--” Arthur watches the water foam in the boat's wake. “I've made up my mind.” He takes a breath. “I thank you for all that you've done for me. You've gone above and beyond and have been a good friend.” The words don't come easy, not because Gwen's not all of that, but because Arthur's tongue always gets thick when it comes to compliments. “But I've got to listen to my instincts, live my life as I want to live it, not as my father would have wished me to, and not as Morgana suggests.” He drums his finger against the phone case, quick, a repeated, staccato motion. “I wish you all the best though, Gwen.”

“Wait, what!” Gwen stammers that out. “What do you mean?”

Knowing he can't find an explanation, not now, not one that will make sense to someone like Gwen, who's known him for such a long time and thought him fixed in his habits, Arthur says, “I’ll clear it up later, I promise, but not now. I-- I need some space now. Please try and understand.”

“Of course.” Gwen doesn't sound as though she's really getting what Arthur means, but then Arthur doesn't either. He's acting on the spur of an instinct, a newly formed notion he's only now deciphering, but one that sits well with him. It puts the joints of him at ease. “Of course, Arthur. Anything you need.”

“Thank you.” Arthur inhales sharply and turns off the connection.

Footsteps thump on the metal ladder and Merlin appears at the top of it. “Breakfast's ready if you want.”

“I'm more than ready for it,” Arthur says with a smile that's only a smidge dampened by the cold. “Breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever you throw at me.”

Merlin grins but quirks his eyebrows at the same time. There are wrinkles stamped in between them. “It's only porridge.”

“Yes,” Arthur says, “but what porridge.”

Merlin shakes his head.

Though he feels rather silly about it, Arthur unfurls a smile of his own.

Together, they go down the ladder.

 

The End.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I found my home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279558) by [Merlocked18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merlocked18/pseuds/Merlocked18)




End file.
